89 Degrees

Not outside, the outside temperature at 3PM today was 97 degrees.  The 89 degrees refers to the temperature it was in my apartment when I got home.  Luckily it’s a small apartment and cools down really quickly.  But it’s definitely not fun to come home to.  This humidity is making me feel sluggish and making my sinuses hurt horribly.  I’m waiting to take some medicine until just before bed time because it’s a night time/sleep aide/decongestant, and I want to make sure I’m able to take it and sleep through the night.  Otherwise the second it wears off I’m wide awake.

The weather seemed perfect when I left for work this morning, no humidity, a nice breeze, probably only 78 or 80, it was a pleasent ride in to work with the windows down.  I can’t tell you how excited I was for today’s breakfast.  Look what I was finally able to fine in a local store!

Pomegranate Chobani! I knew I was a dork when I was food shopping yesterday and announced to Andrew it was the best day in my life while loading up the cart with the new flavored Chobani. 

You can’t see any in this shot but there were quite a few pom seeds floating around in that yogurt.

I mixed it with some Kashi Island Vanilla.

.

I have to say this might be my new favorite flavor!

Lunch today was a delicious pb & j on a whole wheat wrap.

Love!

On the side I had a new kind of organic applesauce I found at the store yesterday.

Can you see the ingredients?

Just organic apples and I guess some added vitamin C.  Unsweetened applesauce is so delicious!  Definitely a delicious side.

I also brought a plum but wound up not eating that until around 3:30 when I got snacky.

Beautiful and juicy.

So once I got home I let the house cool down while I made a refreshing salad.  With only the BIGGEST cucumber I’ve ever seen!

Bigger then my cutting board!

When standing on the counter it rested a good 4 inches above the bottom of my cabinets.  I got this cuc from a co-worker, fresh from her garden.  Expect to see a lot of cucumber in the coming days!

I barely made a dent in it and had some over romaine lettuce.

Perfect for a hot muggy day.

While perusing blogs today I saw some cheesy garlic bread (I forget on which blog) but it looked amazing and I decided to recreate some at home.

I used a hot dog roll, a small amount of (REAL) butter, garlic powder, and a 2% milk string cheese, with some cheddar also sprinkled on.  It was absolutely perfect, and tasted a lot like cheesey bread you’d get at a restaurant, and it was definitely healthier because it wasn’t greasy at all.

I’m really bad at blogging over the weekends, but I can’t wait to share some pictures with you all of a baseball game I went to on Friday, unfortunately I forgot my camera so I have to get them from my friend Jess tomorrow or hopefully soon.

Well I don’t have the A/C on in the office so I’m getting really hot sitting here, hope you all have a great night and stay cool!

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Cheese From a What?!

Sorry I didn’t post last night there’s so much going on here and not enough time in the day.  I have a very busy weekend and I’m not sure I’ll be able to read and comment blogs but by Friday afternoon I should be home free and able to catch up! 

For breakfast yesterday I totally switched it up and some cereal, blackberries, and non-greek yogurt (gasp).  I decided to splurge on other things at whole foods the other day and didn’t grab any.  I bought a big container of Stoneyfield Vanilla yogurt, it’s okay but it’s not thick and creamy like I’m used to!

This cereal mix is 365 brand high fiber cereal and Kashi Island Vanilla.  How have I never gotten this before?  It’s so delicious!

If you haven’t noticed the trend this week I didn’t make lunches ahead and was forced to leave and pick up something for lunch.  Yesterday I went for a cheap meal from Quick Check, I got a whole wheat wrap with roast beef, fresh mozzarella, cucs, red onions, lettuce, and vinegar.

Decent.

Once I came back from work I was accosted by co-workers to try a snack that one of them had brought back from his trip home to Mongolia.  This man has brought in things to our pot lucks like yak cheese, and horse milk.  My first question was if it was yak cheese, he answered it wasn’t and then handed me a piece of this.

 

Any guesses?  He broke me off a much smaller piece for me to try.  I put it in my mouth and instantly I was hit with this tangy sour taste.  It was definitely cheese but I couldn’t figure out how cheese could be crunchy like a meringue.  The flavor was pretty awful but bearable.  After I said it tasted like a bad piece of cheese cake that had been left out in the sun, they told me what I had just consumed.

CAMEL CHEESE!

OH MY GOD!  I didn’t know what to think, I promptly returned the rest of this chunk and then drank a whole bottle of water.  After about an hour I started to feel a little nauseous so I decided to eat something that I know would taste wonderful and hopefully settle the feeling in my tummy! 

It worked until other co-workers started trying it, and I started to feel ill again.  So did my boss so we took a lot of unscheduled breaks to go outside and get some fresh air.

Dinner last night was a taco made out of 3 meatless meatballs.

This was fantastic as usual.

After dinner I went to go see Jessica’s,  one of my best friend’s, new apartment!  She is moving into an apartment about a 5 minute walk from us!  Just like Andrew and I, she’s living on the 3rd floor of an old Victorian house.  It’s adorable and I couldn’t wait to see it!  So we spent the evening hanging out there helping her clean.  After we got home it was time for us to clean because my aunt might be stopping by tonight. 

On the Agenda for the weekend.

Friday

• bank
• mall with mom
• lunch with mom and her friend
• helping Jessica move in
• visiting with my aunt from Virginia
• shopping for vacation clothes!

Saturday

• Driving up to upstate NY for my cousin’s communion and communion party, which is an all day affair.

Sunday

• Setting up my cousin’s bridal shower
• Then the shower itself, I’m dreading it, I don’t get along with the bride’s mom, my aunt, and her other daughter and my cousin, we haven’t spoken to each other in over 3 years.  They both still owe me an apology for something my cousin did to me and they refuse to see that she is wrong.  The details are so old and boring I won’t get into it, but I’m hoping Sunday is drama free.

Hope you all have a fantastic Friday!  Hopefully I’ll be popping in from time to time!

Most Pointless Day of Work EV-ER

EDITED TO ADD:

My email address below was wrong, please see the corrected email address at the bottom of the page, so sorry about any confusion!

So I had some training today that was a complete waste of my time. I’m not going to go into details but I don’t think it was of any value to me.  Because of the training I was cranky all day.  The training started right at 8 so I got to work 10 minutes early and quickly ate my delicious breakfast I didn’t even get to enjoy it but I’m sure it was wonderful.  I had a 2% Cherry Fage with peak protein granola. 

Have you guys noticed that almost every picture I take at work,  has a ruler and a purple pen in it?  That’s my favorite pen, and unfortunately I have to use that ruler almost all day every day.  So, sorry if you’re sick of seeing it.

After my “oh so fun” morning I ate my lunch almost as quickly as my breakfast so I could go outside and take a walk and call everyone I knew to complain how much I hated today.  God I’m such a downer and a sailor, almost every word out of my mouth was an “F-Bomb”.   Lunch was a super easy wrap of pb and banana, not that you would be able to tell, I could have McDonald’s cheeseburgers in there but apparently I only took one picture of my wrap and you can not even see the contents.  Girl Scout Honor it was pb and banana.

Oh and for variety I threw a red pen in there!

After my training was over I had an orange.

After work Andrew picked me up and took me to D&D to get an iced coffee.  I’m so sensitive to caffeine I’m still wired hours later.  And there’s no picture because I wouldn’t shut my mouth long enough to think about getting out my camera.  Poor Andrew had to listen to me complain and tell stories of how hilariously sarcastic and bitchy I was all day, he couldn’t get a word in to tell me about his day.

My mom invited us over for dinner tonight and once I found out she was making a whole chicken I was sold on the idea.  Somehow Mom didn’t make a veggie tonight so my plate looks super boring, I assure you it was a treat for the taste buds though.  She made a side of oh so bad for you Rice-A-Roni and I was all over that.

I had another piece of chicken and another spoonful of rice.  Yummmmm!

So this weather we’re supposed to have this weekend made me think about my favorite things to do in the summer and BBQing is one of my favorites.  While talking to my dad tonight I though of the idea of having a (wait for it…)

 Blogger Barbeque. 

Would any of you from NJ or NY (I’m about an hour and 15 minute train ride from the city) or anywhere in the Tri-State area really, be interested in meeting and doing a BBQ in my parents backyard at some point this summer?  If you are send me an email:

365healthyeats@gmail.com

If you are I can give you the details of where my parents live and you can see if it’s a trip you’d be willing to make.  I don’t really have any details obviously since I just thought of it but I don’t want to plan anything until I know that some of you are interested. 

Well even though I”m off tomorrow, my sweetheart is not and I’m going to go spend some quality time with him before he falls asleep.  Hope you all have a fabulous Friday and I’m hoping it goes by quickly.

Free Pizza and Extra Zzz’s

What a crummy day.  It’s been raining since I woke up this morning, and it’s been cold and windy, definitely the kind of day you just want to stay in bed and read or watch some trashy tv.  But I hear it’s going to be a gorgeous weekend here (in the 70s!) so let’s get this rain out of the way before the weekend!

For breakfast this morning I continued with the bagel/pb combo, today though I had a cinnamon raisin bagel.

Delicious it reminded me that I have a jar of PB&Co cinnamon raisin in my cabinet, so I’ll definitely be breaking that out again soon!

For lunch today I had the other 1/2 of my Chicken Fajita wrap.

As I took my first bite I realized this side had a ton of cheese and whatever it was I wasn’t a fan so I deconstructed this into a bowl and left the cheese to the side.  It was still a great lunch but next time I ordered it (which I totally will) I would get it without the cheese.  They already had to make it special for me because it had a sour cream (yuck) based dressing so removing one more item shouldn’t be too much to ask.

Around 3 I started to get super hungry.  I don’t know why I don’t bring snacks for the days I need them but for real I knew I wasn’t going to make it until I got home so I ran to the vending machine and got some peanuts.  The only decent choice from the vending machine in my office.

Yum and I still have 1/2 the bag left for the next time my hunger strikes. 

Do any of you keep any snacks at your desk at work?  What do you keep in your snack stash, I need some ideas!

As I’ve mentioned Andrew had given up pizza for lent and I knew he had been craving it for a while now, so we decided to meet at a local pizzeria when I got out of work.  I got 2 slices, 1 white, and 1 sausage and pepper.

Right after I took a few bites the guy who worked behind the counter brought me another slice because he felt bad that there were some burnt spots (I actually enjoyed the crispy parts) and he insisted on giving me another slice to take home.  Who is going to turn down a free slice of pizza?  Not this girl!  You’ll see it for my lunch tomorrow.

Clearly I started eating this slice before I realized I forgot to take a picture, it was super thin sausage slices and there were only about 4 on the whole slice but it gave the slice such a great flavor.  I think I’m getting a little burnt out on eating so much meat already though and I’m ready to relax and eat it more infrequently like I used to.

As soon as we got home I got into bed and watched some Real Housewives of NYC and tried to get warm. I am so ready to feel 70 degrees this weekend, it’s like I forget what it feels like to be warm.

Well I have some emails to respond to and I’m hoping to fall asleep by 10.  Melissa at Run, Eat, Repeat is trying to get 8 hours of sleep every night for the next 30 nights.  I know I could the extra Zzz’s so I’ll be following in her footsteps.  Wish me luck!

Halfway There

What a day!  We’re so close to being done with all the cleaning stuff.  Thank God!

After cleaning/organizing for most of the morning I was pretty hungry for lunch.  I had  gotten Barney Butter packets in the mail to sample so I was super excited because I’ve actually never even tried almond butter.

I had this spread on 1/2 a WW wrap.  There was actually a good amount in this little packet.

On the side I also had some grapes, mango,and baby carrots.

 

This was a really great tasting lunch.  As for the Barney Butter, I liked it but I didn’t love it.  I’m interested to try other almond butters now though.

Well back to tackling that to do list!  Hope you’re all having a great FRIDAY! 

The weekend is in sight…

I can’t believe today is already almost over, this week is flying by!  And the fact that a week from now it’ll be April is nuts!  2009 sure is moving quickly!  Anyone else think this year is going fast?

For breakfast today my old love is back.  Chobani!  Oh how I’ve missed my Chobani, especially my vanilla.  I had that with a peak protein granola sprinkled on top.

 

This is a heavenly combination!

Lunch today was a pb and banana sandwich with some green grapes on the side.

Some of my grapes were very tart, I didn’t enjoy those few, but the rest were perfectly sweet!

Around 3 I was ready to gnaw my arm off, I didn’t think I had any snacks with me because I really haven’t been snacking in the afternoons.  I was about to hit up the vending machine when I remembered that I did, in fact, have a snack courtesy of Missy.  She sweetly handed out some clif z bars on Sunday at the brunch, and I luckily still had it in my bag.  So thank you so much Missy for keeping me away from the vending machine! 

Once I got home from work I was once again hungry, I don’t know what is with my appetite today.  I knew exactly what I wanted I was inspired by this meal.  I had some meatless meatballs and was craving tacos so I made a taco wrap.  I used 4 meatless meatballs broken up and cooked in taco seasoning, romaine lettuce, spinach, mexican cheese blend, and salsa, on whole wheat tortilla.

This was so good! 

After resting and watching some of last night’s Biggest Loser it was time to go to the gym.  I did strength training first and then jumped on the treadmill, I didn’t feel like running today so I walked at a steep incline for a while.  According to my HRM my stats are:

• 450 calories burned
• Avg HR 153
• Max HR 181

Have I said how much I love this HRM already?  One thing I did notice on the treadmill is since they’ve got Polar HRM built in my stats show up on not only my treadmill but the one next to me.  I don’t know if that’s normal or not.

Once returning back home I snacked on 2 Tagalongs.

Last year when I got my 2 boxes of Tagalongs they were gone in about a week, I’ve had these for a week now and this is my second helping of them.  Just goes to show me how much I’ve improved since the beginning of the year.

Well lovelies I’m off to bed, I hope you all have a great night!

No Appetite = Boring Eats

Yup until this evening I still had no appetite.  But it’s back now and I was happy to eat a full and satisfying dinner.   I had so much trouble getting out of bed this morning, I slept horribly and woke up quite a few times and had trouble getting back to sleep.  When my alarm went off this morning I barely stirred.  I was seriously contemplating going in late, but just dragged my butt out of bed with enough time to get ready and get there on time.  The day went by pretty quickly which is always a good thing. 

For breakfast I ate about 3/4 of a 0% Fage with peak protein granola mixed in.

I just never got hungry again and by lunch time I decided to just have a clif bar instead of eating something else.  I’m so surprised my hunger didn’t come back because I had a great hard workout both yesterday and Saturday, so strange how it all but disappeared.   I had the pear and apple strudel clif bar.

Still my favorite flavor.

On my way home from work I started to feel hungry.  FINALLY!  I was so excited to get home and make dinner.  I still had eggplant left over so I grabbed some of that and made a wrap with 1 big piece of eggplant, and then had a smaller piece on the side.  I also had a gigantic salad with almost a whole romaine heart, some onion, and 4 mini sweet peppers with a little bit too much light Caesar dressing, the bottle kinda got away from me when I was pouring it on. 

Well we made it through the hardest day of the week!  It should be smooth sailing from here on out. 

If you haven’t already go check out at Ashley at Foods that Fit, she’s organizing a Blogger Cookbook!  I still haven’t submitted my recipes but plan to tomorrow evening!

23 Hours…

Good Morning!  Hope you’re enjoying your weekend.  Today is an hour shorter then every other day of this year so make sure to make the most of it!  I love springing ahead because it will be lighter longer now but it looks like it’s going to be cloudy today and for the next couple days, we may not even get to enjoy the extra light.  It has been so warm this weekend, all 14 inches of the snow are gone, in less the 6 days since the big snow fall it disappeared!  It was close to 70 yesterday and I thoroughly enjoyed the weather.

Friday night was a ton of fun we went out to a bar down the street, I have such a great group of friends!  I had a mozzarella stick but no picture of it, the rest of the night I enjoyed water and the company of my friends.  So different from a few months ago where everytime we’d go out I’d spend 40 bucks on drinks, and feel sick Saturday morning.  I’d really rather no have a drink at all or just enjoy one drink, just another change I made this year that I’m happy about.  We came home kinda early and went to bed since Andrew had work Saturday morning.  BUT I had a great conversation with my 2 best girlfriends and we have decided to run the Fear The Pier 5k in May!  I’m so excited! It’ll be my first 5k and I couldn’t be happier about running it with them. Time to start training!

Yesterday morning I had personal training so I had a protein packed breakfast of a 0% plain Chobani with a piece of the banana bread mixed in.  I hate it outside on our deck in the sunshine!

My trainer kicked my ass yesterday! I was so tired after training I didn’t wind up doing any cardio at the gym.  I am so sore today and plan on doing some yoga to loosen up before I hit up the gym.

After personal training yesterday I went to my parents house to hang out with my sister while my parents went to buy new couches, after Andrew got out of work he stopped by Tropical Smoothie Cafe and grabbed me the same Veggie Veggie wrap as last time, and I went a little crazy and had a serving sized bag of baked lays with it.

After lunch Andrew and I took turns using my parents elliptical, I had to get my cardio in somewhere and it was slightly raining so I was a baby and didn’t want to go outside..

After that we came back to the apartment to clean and eat dinner.  I had an eggplant I had to use up so I made my version of eggplant parm.  Just sliced the eggplant, roasted it in the oven with a small amount of EVOO brushed onto the eggplant with garlic powder sprinkled on top and popped it in the oven for 20 minutes flipping once half way through.  I then put it in a casserole dish covered it with sauce and a small amount of cheese.  After the cheese is melted it’s done!  Oh my gosh this is sooo good.

Once dinner was over,  MsInformed and her fiancé came over to celebrate her birthday!!!!  We had pomegranate and vodka drinks with the POM Wonderful juice.  She also agreed it was really good.  This is a photo from last time because I didn’t get a chance to take a picture last night.

Well I’m going to have some coffee and find something to eat before I run to the gym.  Have a great Sunday!  I’ll be back after dinner tonight!

40 Days and 40 Nights

I feel like this whole week is just flying by!  I can’t believe tomorrow is already Thursday.  Tomorrow is a normal work day for me but there’s a meeting I need to attend plus more work on a new project so tomorrow should continue the trend and be over before I even realize it.  Then Friday I’m getting trained on a new version of our design/drafting software the whoooooole day which will also go by super quickly.  Then Saturday it’s my mom’s kinda sorta birthday.  She’s a leap year baby (she’s only 12 lol) so she doesn’t have an actual birthday, but she makes us celebrate anyway.  Any ideas on what to get a mom who never asks for anything?  Send them my way, I have no clue what to get her!

So for breakfast I continued the Chobani trend of the week and had another peach yogurt with peak protein granola.

I had to stop myself from licking the container clean, I just love this flavor.

I was so excited for my lunch I almost couldn’t wait to eat it!  But I held off until a normal hour, and had my leftovers from last night’s dinner out.  Gosh this was even better then last night!  Michelle and I talked about it at lunch and how we just want more and more of it.

I was hungry for a snack around 3 but there just wasn’t much time to eat.  It was a crazy day where I felt like I was running around the office more then I was at my desk, I am in no way complaining being at my desk for 9 hours a day really drives me nuts.  It was nice to have things to do that didn’t involve sitting there.

I had to meet with my personal trainer tonight so I had to have a quick dinner.  And it’s Ash Wednesday so that means no meat for me.  I went the easy route and had an egg wrap.  I had 2 scrambled eggs, with 2 mini sweet peppers mixed in, and some onion.  On the side I roasted 2 baby white potatoes with a small amount of olive oil, garlic powder, and onion powder.  Such an easy meal but completely satisfying!

There was too much egg to fit all in the wrap so I had some on the side as well.

Those potatoes were roasted perfectly.

So did you give anything up for Lent?  I’ve been toying with giving up meat and I still haven’t decided yet, but I think I’m going to do it.  It’s only 40 days right?   It’ll give me the chance to try new things, and I think to get out of this food rut I feel like I’ve been in, it’s just the right choice for me right now.  I was scared to put it on the blog because I’m afraid I might not be able to do it.  But if it’s on the blog it will hold me accountable.  I have great resources for vegetarian meals with all your wonderful blogs, and my best friend Michelle is a vegetarian as well so she’ll be able to help me on the way.

Since I typically eat meat I’m not going to be a very strict vegetarian, as it is I don’t eat too much red meat, it’s going to be chicken that’s going to be hard to give up.  But I’m willing to give it a shot.  Wish me Luck!

Fat Sandwiches

Hey everyone!  I’m feeling better again, still not 100% but so much closer, I’m excited to go to the gym tomorrow.  I took another night off and I know I needed it, but I’ll be so happy when I’m able to workout at full capacity again.  I’m sure tomorrow is going to be hard but it’s going to be so nice to get back in there.

Today I was in a really good when I got to work.  The sun was shining it was in the 50’s, I was feeling better, and then I got to work, everyone seemed to be in a bad mood today.  The clouds quickly rolled in with drizzles here and there, and the temperature dropped down to 35*.  But it’s Thursday so I was trying not to let everyone else’s moods affect my attitude for the day.  It’s hard trying to be positive when everyone else was so negative, but I know that tomorrow everyone will be happy it’s Friday, as will I.  I mean you get to wear jeans to work tomorrow.  Things don’t get much better then that right? Ha.

So I started out the morning with a blueberry Chobani.  I still think this isn’t the best flavor, I’ll stick to plain, vanilla, and peach from now on, but I’m glad I was able to find this in the store and try it.  I also had 2 clementines on the side.

All I wanted today for lunch was pb on a bagel, I settled for 1/2 a bagel with lots of fruit on the side.  I had grapes, blueberries, and 2 prunes to go along with my peanut buttery bagel.

Yum!

I still don’t have my full appetite back so there was no snacking in between meals, but my mom texted me this afternoon to ask if Andrew and I wanted to go to one of the local diners for dinner.  If you’ve been to or are from NJ you know that diners are every 1/2 mile on the highways.  If you’re from Jersey I’d bet you spent many countless hours at a table in a diner, just drinking coffee or eating pork roll, egg, and cheese on a hard roll (ewww not me though, I’ve always loathed pork roll).  I’d even go so far as to guess you’ve gone to a diner after at least one homecoming or school dance all dressed up with a big group of friends.  Yeah, we really love diners in Jersey.  At a diner you can get anything, Italian food, Greek gyros, Mexican food, and of course breakfast 24 hours a day.  Or if you go to my local diner you can get a “Fat Sandwich.”  Intrigued?  Here’s the selection of Fat Sandwiches at the diner tonight.

All those ingredients are on one Sub roll.  So if you order a Fat Flo you’d get a sub roll with chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks, french fries and marinara sauce all stuffed on there. Or perhaps you’re very hungry and that’s not enough.  May I suggest a Fat Manny, which is  cheese steak, eggs, pork roll, lettuce, tomato, mayo, and ketchup all on a long roll.

I ordered a Fat Nancy.

I’m kidding of course.  My order was not on the “Fat Cat” portion of the menu.  I got a veggie wrap which included grilled eggplant and zucchini, spinach, tomatoes, romaine lettuce, carrots, red onions, and mozzarella cheese, with balsamic dressing on the side.

 

It came with french fries, but Andrew’s meal came with home fries so I gave him all my fries for 1/2 of his home fries.   Delicious.  I ate one 1/2 the wrap and then picked the eggplant off the other half and just ate that, and I also ate almost all of the home fries.

Oh and my dad got a greek salad with his entree so I gladly ate some of that as well.

Here’s the whole salad.

I ate less then a 1/4 of his salad, mostly just picked out all his onions and ate those.

So there you have it, a typical night at a Jersey Diner, hope you enjoyed yourselves!

 

Hope you all have a great night, and hope your Friday flies by so you can start enjoying your weekends!